Pigtail Pulling
by Arynn Octavia
Summary: Jim comes to discover a few things about himself, and a few things about a few of his coworkers. Jim/Dwight slash. Pam/OMC. Expect spoilers through the episode Diwali, during which this begins. It is also slightly AU before that point, as you'll see. WIP
1. Parapraxis

It was my best prank ever. Too bad Pam wasn't there to see it. I, of course, told her all about in her apartment that night, but I could never recreate the look on Dwight's face when it happened. No, you had to be there for that, see it with your own eyes.

Michael had sent Dwight and me to the Scranton Public Library to find books about Hinduism. He needed information, he said. I told him google would be able to tell him anything he needed to know, but his only answer was a mumble, something about Jan, broadening his horizons, and that reading joke books should count as "reading books". As we left he was just finishing up a scribbled list of words that rhyme with Diwali.

So we arrived at the library, and Dwight immediately proceeded over to the librarian, demanding where to find the information we needed. I zigzagged my way through the shelves, pulling out various books that looked interesting. I found myself in the section with the art and craft books. Wondering what the heck a book called "Stitch and Bitch" could be about, I was about to reach for it when something caught my eye, and that brilliant light bulb went on above my head.

I had figured out the number code to Dwight's briefcase lock ages ago (I had heard the lecture about how the Harry Potter movies take place in the totally wrong decade enough times to know that Harry's first year at Hogwarts was actually 1991; Dwight had even tried to get me to sign a petition to have them correct the wardrobe and hair choices to make the movies more compatible with the time frame in which they were supposed to have occurred). I sat on this knowledge until the right time should present itself, and that time had come. It wasn't even that tricky to get the briefcase away from him for two minutes, just quoting a (totally made-up) fact about bears mating for life had him shoving the briefcase in my stomach as he stormed off to find that book that would prove me wrong.

Proved wrong, I was, after which we collected the books we had chosen for Michael and headed toward the circulation desk where Dwight flashed his library card like a badge. As we headed toward the door, I went back to the stacks to get the bag I had "forgotten," and ducked behind the reference section, waiting. As Dwight passed through the doors the alarm sounded. Dwight dropped the books piled in his arms and turned, ready to tackle to the ground the scum who would dare steal from the library, only to find that he was the only person near the doors. Confused, he pick up the books and made his way back to the desk so the librarian could demagnetize the books, "properly, this time." She did, and tested each book to see if they would cause the security panels by the door to go off again. When none of them caused the wand to blink, she piled them again in Dwight's arms, and he made his way to the door. As Dwight passed the panels, the alarm sounded again. This time his patients were running very thin, and I made my way over to the desk, the most innocent expression I could muster painted across my face.

"What seems to be the problem here?"

"The books keep making the alarm sound."

"It's not the books, sir." The librarian sounded annoyed. "The wand shows that they have been demagnetized."

"Maybe it's your belt buckle," I offered 'helpfully'.

Dwight reached down and started to undo his belt when the librarian held up her hand to attempt to stop him. "No, sir. It's not a metal detector, it is a magnet sensor. Unless there's a magnet in your belt buckle…"

Trying to force down the smile that was trying to bloom on my face, I offered, "Maybe there's something in your brief case."

"There are no magnets in my briefcase."

The librarian ran the wand over his briefcase, and the red light blinked. "Sir, could you please open your briefcase?"

Seriously grumbling under his breath, he bent low over his briefcase, attempting to use his body to block the lock from my view as he turned the dial. As he opened the case and laid it out on the circulation desk his eyes widened and the librarian smirked up at him. There, lying among paper samples and sales invoices lay a thin hardcover book: _Erotic Drawings of the Nude Male_. It was all I could do to suppress a laugh as his wide eyes flashed quickly up to my face, then the librarian's, before falling back onto the book.

"You seem to have forgotten one, sir. I'll check that out for you." She smirked again at Dwight, and for some inexplicable reason, at me, before looking down at our hands, which both happened to be rested on the edge of the counter, not even millimeters apart from each other. Dwight noticed her looking, and swiftly dropped his own hand to his side as he quickly stammered out, "N-No, that's not mine. I didn't put that there."

She looked at me, and I just answered with a shrug. She looked again at Dwight, who looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "Okay, sir, must just be a mistake."

"You're damn right it's a mistake." He stormed out with his now-lighter briefcase, leaving me to smile and wink at the librarian, and pick up Michael's books on my way out.

"He can be sso touchy, ssometimess," I lisped out, making the librarian giggle.

He swooped down on me the minute I got out of the building, demanding to know how I had gotten the book in his briefcase. Playing innocent, I suggested that it could have been quantum tunneling, or that he may have put it in there himself. "According to Freud, mistakes never happen. Your unconscious may be trying to tell you something."

He thought about that one for a bit, before offering, "Perhaps it WAS quantum tunneling."

We rode back to the office in silence.

-x-o-X-0-X-o-x-

After the Diwali celebration, Pam and I went back to her place for our weekly get-together, where I filled her in on my prank as we waited for the popcorn to pop.

"Oh my god, that's so great." The exfoliating mud mask she had put on her face was cracking over her smile, but she didn't care.

"I know! You should have seen his face. It was like… He was just… It was indescribable."

"Now hold still-." She began smearing the mud on my face.

"Wait! NO. I don't want that."

"Hey, it feels good."

"You look like swamp thing."

She looked at me with puppy dog eyes, and I had to give in. "Fine, but never tell ANYONE about this."

She proceeded to spread the greenish brown mud on my face with a tiny pink plastic spatula. It was hard to tell through the thick, now cracked coating on her face, but I could swear she was trying to hold back a smirk. I wouldn't say the mask felt good, just that it felt like I had fallen face first into a cold puddle of mud. Just as she finished icing my face, the phone rang.

She reached for it and said, "Hello," while trying to hold the receiver away from her muddy skin. That only made it easier for me to hear who was on the other end. It was her boyfriend. Since she had broken off her wedding with Roy, she had started seeing someone from an art class she was taking. I hadn't met him yet, but from the way she talked about him, he was perfect for her.

"Oh, yeah. Jim's over here. We're having a girls' night."

I shouldn't have let her put the mask on me. "Hey!" I protested, trying to flick her arm.

She stuck out her tongue while dancing out of my reach, and into her bedroom. When the microwave beeped, I pulled out the bag and transferred it to a bowl, while popping a new bag in. I sprinkled

Parmesan cheese and salt on her bowl, the way she likes it, and waited for my bag to finish popping. She came back out in her pink jammies and a pastel lavender bath robe.

"I feel overdressed."

"You could always borrow my nighty."

"No. Thank you."

When the microwave beeped she poured my popcorn into a bowl and prepared it the way I like it, then we sank down into her couch to watch our movies. I showed her that I had brought Weekend at Bernie's. She brought out Brokeback Mountain. I don't even bother asking any more. Last week it was The Birdcage, before that All Over the Guy, before that In and Out, before that…Let's just say that I had no idea there were so many gay-themed movies. I'm not giving her the satisfaction of a response any more.

"Have you seen it?" She didn't want to let it go.

I almost lied, but decided against it. "No, not yet."

"Let's start with this, then. We'll need comedy after."

-x-o-X-0-X-o-x-

After the movie, I couldn't help but protest.

"That was so unrealistic. They didn't really seem like they could stand each other, how are we supposed to believe they were in love?" I got up to replace her rented disk with mine before taking my between-movies bathroom break.

"Well, they were passionate about each other. They could really get under each other's skin easily. For them, I think fighting was like foreplay. I know you can relate."

"How?"

"Think of what you and Dwight do. You're always playing pranks on him just to gauge his reaction; he's always doing annoying things just to get a rise out of you. It's like the pigtail pulling in junior high, but it's the sexiest flirting I've ever seen."

"What are you talking about?"

"You guys really enjoy it. Your face seriously lit up when you told me about the prank at the library today. You're totally crazy about Dwight."

I could only stare at her, dumbfounded, unable to move. Finally, when the buzzing sound cleared my brain and I was able to think, I spoke. "Ha ha, very funny," I said as I went into the bathroom. There, I leaned on the sink, staring at my monstrous green face in the mirror. What would make her think that- How could she even consider that I-That Dwight-That we- Wait! She was messing with me! Yes, that had to be it. Okay, Pam. You win this time. I washed the flaky mud from my face. I had to admit, my skin did feel softer.

I came out in a much better mood, and she had her turn in the bathroom. When she came out it looked like she was waiting for me to say something, so I asked if she needed more popcorn. She rolled her eyes and sat down, pushing play on the remote. Thankfully, I was able to empty my mind and focus on the comedic shenanigans.

The movie ended late enough that I almost considered crashing on Pam's sofa, but I really longed for the comfort of my own bed. I drove home on autopilot, not even realizing so until I pulled into my parking space outside my apartment. I dragged myself up the stairs and unlocked my door. My roommate had fallen asleep watching some sort of girl-on-girl porn, if the feminine huffs and grunts coming from the speakers were any indication. I tiptoed quietly through the living room and collapsed in bed, not even bothering to undress in my exhaustion. I was asleep before the moaning and groaning coming from the living room had ended. Of course, hearing two women in the throes of enacting the typical male fantasy just as you're falling asleep tends to do weird things to your dreams.

-x-o-X-0-X-o-x-

I had pulled a prank on Dwight. I had put his whole phone in rainbow colored jello, and he was glaring at me from across his desk. When did that glare start to go right to my crotch? I tried to distract myself from the effect it was having on me, and picked up my own phone receiver. It wiggled and flopped around in my hand. I looked around. Since when was everything in the office made of jello? Pam sat behind her wiggling jello desk, typing on a wiggling jello keyboard. I put my wiggling jello receiver back on my wiggling jello phone.

Dwight's shirt, which was made of wiggling yellow jello started to break apart and slip down his now glistening bare chest. My jello chair could no longer support my weight, and I fell down in a pile of blue jello. Dwight charged at me and dove down, throwing his weight on top of me. We slipped around, wrestling in an office now full of jello. Pam told me to stop flirting with Dwight, and Michael stood there watching us wrestle, eating jello popcorn out of a jello bowl and cheering me on.

I tried to get on top of Dwight, but he was too strong and all of the jello was too slippery. He kept pinning me down. He pressed his body down against mine, holding me in place and that's when he felt my erection.

"It's nice to know that not everything in this office is soft and floppy." His smirk made me shiver in anticipation, and then he kissed me.

"That's what SHE said," Michael laughed, before declaring Dwight the winner.

I woke up needing to take a REALLY cold shower, thankful that it was the weekend, and I wouldn't have to face Dwight until Monday.

End Chapter one

A/N: Obviously, in this story, Jim never went to Stamford, and nothing Jim/Pam or Dwight/Angela ever happened. This story was, oddly enough, inspired by a photograph of John Krasinski, who plays Jim. The photo can be found at: http(colon backslash backslash) wereadtoknow (dot) files (dot) wordpress (dot) com (backslash) 2009 (backslash) 02(backslash) final (dash) john1 (dot) jpg

In it John looks like the most adorably cute gay boy ever. I just had to write this in response to that picture.


	2. Repression

I agonized the whole weekend. I couldn't figure where Pam had got her cockamamie ideas. I couldn't believe this had me worked up to the point of using words like "cockamamie." That sounds like something Dwight would…

So where had Pam come up with that crazy idea?

Dwight was a man, for one thing, although it surprised me how little this fact seemed to bother me. Admittedly, I had entertained the notion that I might not be heterosexual. I had had what I would call crushes on both men and women, but the nature of the crushes was totally different. With my woman crushes, I always found myself wanting to hang out with them, to go to movies, to talk. My whole reason for befriending Pam when I first started at the office was because I just thought she was totally awesome. But with all of my female crushes, sexual thoughts never even entered the picture. My male crushes on the other hand… I mean, the fact that the first time I masturbated I was thinking about my 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Severson, was the first of many major clues that I might be gay.

The fact that another person had noticed this about me didn't bother me either. Pam was my best friend. If and when I had planned on telling anyone, she would have been the first.

No, what was bothering me most was that it was Dwight that she had assumed I was attracted to, of all the guys at the office. I mean, even Michael admits to having a man-crush on Ryan. All the ladies in the office think Ryan is attractive. But-okay no-he does not appeal to me at all. Still, why Dwight? It is because Dwight is usually the focus of my pranks? It can't be, Pam helps me with the pranks too. She doesn't have a crush on him. Well, I certainly didn't either.

I had never even thought about him in that way; having sex with him, how his authoritarian personality would translate to his personal style as a lover. He's probably dominant in bed-dominant, but gentle. Oddly enough, I could imagine him taking directions well, if you want it softer, he would go softer, but if you want it harder, he would really give it to you. He'd be dominant, but not necessarily always a top. I think he would enjoy bottoming as well, and he certainly wouldn't be a passive bottom, he would have his say…

I knew I had to derail that train of thought when I looked down and realized that my body was "responding." Thinking about DWIGHT. At first I felt guilty, and then I felt dirty, and then I felt frustrated at the apparent results of my attempt to prove to myself that I do NOT have a crush on Dwight. In attempt to distract myself from where I was currently heading, my thoughts went in a totally different, and wholly terrifying, direction. I imagined kissing him chastely, cuddling with him on a couch and watching Harry Potter or Battlestar Galactica and…and… and it wouldn't matter. He's absurd, he's obstinate, he's predictable, yet… he's surprising, he's steady, and he's funny. He makes me laugh, he makes me-happy, in a weird way. As long as I could be there with him, I would enjoy anything. He's not "hot." You would never see him half naked on a calendar or in an issue of Playgirl. But he was, well, sexy, at least to me. He was …cute, even.

"Oh. My. GOD."

I totally had a crush on Dwight.

Finally, Monday arrived. I drove to work dreading my day, wondering how I would deal with everything that had come up over the weekend. The mind is a funny thing, though, and by the time I pulled into the Dunder Mifflin parking lot, I had seemingly suppressed all thoughts that had been causing anxiety since I had left Pam's. It made it easier to focus on my work throughout the day by not even looking at Dwight. Admittedly, this is harder to do when your desk faces that of the object of your suppressed thoughts, but I mostly managed to push it all down.

You noticed that "mostly" didn't you?

Okay, so once I saw him twiddling a pen between his fingers. The flawless movements, the ease with which he spun it, it just caught my eye. I looked up to focus on it more fully, and that's when he grabbed the end of the pen with his other hand, while his right hand slowly stroked lightly from the tip closest to me, down the length of the pen to meet with the fingers of his left hand, and then even slower back to the tip. He then reached up to hold the pen between his lips as he typed. My body responded almost instantly. I looked, wide-eyed, up into his eyes to find him staring at me.

"What?" he asked in a half paranoid, half accusing tone.

Of course, I couldn't say anything. And I blushed! It shouldn't even be possible to blush when your blood is rushing in a decidedly more southern direction, but I blushed. Then I couldn't stop looking at his lips. I don't know what the look on my face was, but apparently I have a similar look when I'm playing a joke on him, because he became even more paranoid. Slowly scooting his chair over to me, he said in a low, warning voice, "What did you do, Jim?"

I shivered. His voice never had that effect on me before, so I completely blamed Pam for bringing everything up. There I sat, shivering, hard as a rock, and looking at Dwight's lips. There was only one thing I could do.

I ran to hide in the men's room for the remaining half-hour of my work day.

-x-o-X-0-X-o-x-

"Hello?"

"Help me."

"Jim, is that you?"

"Yes."

"What's wrong?"

"I need help, Pam."

"Okay. I'll be right over."

I rushed over as quickly as I could. Glad when I got there that I had. Jim looked absolutely miserable. He still wore the suit he had worn to work that day, but he had wrapped a blanket around himself and replaced his shoes with a pair of slippers. He opened the door dejectedly and made his way back to the couch, plopping down in a heap only vaguely resembling human.

"You were right."

Was he expecting an answer to that? I only stood with a confused look on my face.

"I'm crazy about Dwight."

Oh. "Congratulations!"

He finally looked up, outraged at my choice of words. "What do you mean, congratulations?"

"For finally figuring it out."

"Why did you have to go and point it out to me?"

"Well, honestly, I thought you already knew. But isn't finally figuring out what you want liberating?"

"Liberating? I would have gone on, lived the rest of my life blissfully unaware…not knowing how I feel, sure, but also not knowing that I want something I can never have."

"You would have figured it out eventually. Besides, you might be surprised if you just tell him how you feel."

"Yeah, I can see that conversation happening. Just walk up and say 'Hey, Dwight, I would really like to go out with you to dinner and a movie, then how about we go back to you place and you bend me over a bale of hay in the barn and we do it, beet farmer style?' It's not like that's the kind of proposal that could get a guy beaten to death, or anything."

I had never considered that. I could walk up to ANY guy in this world, ask him out, and pretty much be guaranteed to be fine. If he's interested, I'd get a date, if he's not, he'll just say so. I guess that's a bit different for gay guys. "Dwight would never..."

"Okay, he wouldn't kill me."

"How do you know he doesn't feel the same way?"

He looked at me with a sarcastic look. If looks can be sarcastic.

"Well, I'll do some recon, see if I can find anything out."

"No, I think you should NOT do that, and we should pretend this never happened."

Quietly crossing my fingers behind my back, I replied, "okay."

No matter how much he tried to put his feelings on the back burner, I knew that this would slowly eat away at him, and I intended to do something about it. I would not rest until Jim was happy in the arms of Dwight Schrute. I felt like Haley Mills in the Parent Trap. I would set up a gay-boy trap. A seemingly impossible task, but like every seemingly possible task, this one would begin with a single step…

"Okay, I have to say something," I waited until he had looked up at me to continue, "Do it, beet farmer style?"

Ca-Ching! He smiled.

End Chapter Two


	3. Reaction Formation

I decided I needed to start by finding out how Dwight felt about Jim. I didn't know why, but I just had a feeling that Dwight was into Jim. It was the same feeling I had had about Jim, and that had ended up being right...

Jim had always seemed to come alive in Dwight's presence, and not even just while playing pranks on him. Even when they were just quietly working, he would always peer up at Dwight periodically throughout the day, watching him when the other man was not looking. Of course, he also did the same with me, but with Dwight, it was different.

Still it hadn't been enough for me to really register until the Diwali celebration. When Michael was singing his Diwali song inspired by Adam Sandler's Chanukah song, I had happened to look over at Jim to find him staring raptly at Dwight. There was just something in the way he was watching his coworker play that guitar that made it plainly obvious, which had brought all of those little clues I had noticed before to mind again. Of course, I had known for quite a while that Jim was probably gay, but until that moment, I hadn't entertained the notion that he could actually be interested in Dwight, of all people. But there it was, plainly written on Jim's ever-expressive face.

So the very next day, I started the preliminary recon for Operation: Closet Storm (okay, a working title). My excitement as I woke and prepared for work that day, feeling like Tom Hanks, cracking DaVinci's code to find the secrets I sought, dissipated as the day wore on. I was getting nowhere. The same thing happened the next day, and the next. The days turned into weeks.

I watched Dwight, looking for any sign, of anything. I watched him when Jim was around, I watched him when others were around, and on one lucky occasion, I even watched him when no one was around, and he thought he was alone. I came to the conclusion that Dwight was a hard man to read. It was obvious that he tried to project an image of strength and control, but what this façade was hiding, I couldn't really tell. Only in a few rare instances did that façade crack enough for me to catch glimpses of whatever it was hiding.

I had seen it before, the Dwight I had met after he had sustained a concussion the year before. After his injury, it seemed he had temporarily lost the need to keep up his appearance of authority and control. What had slipped out was the true Dwight, free from posturing, free from the wall that usually stood erected around him. That Dwight was goofy, friendly, and likable. That Dwight belonged with Jim. Unfortunately, that Dwight was rare in appearance, usually at those times when no one was around, or oddly enough, when he was alone with Jim. How could I incapacitate the false Dwight enough to really explore the Dwight underneath? I needed to force his hand in some way, and I needed all the help I could get, which is why I found myself curled upon the couch, trying to figure out a way to step up my plan and bouncing ideas off Peter, my boyfriend.

"No, I know what I'm talking about here. By the way you describe it, he puts on a front of strength to cover some weakness, or something he perceives to be a weakness. It's probably not just authority and strength, he probably strives to be macho too, perhaps an interest in sports?"

"I guess so, yeah. Martial arts- and muscle cars!"

"See. Now, it could be a response to being gay, but it could be insecurity over anything, really. Did he have a strict upbringing?"

"I'm not sure, but by the way he talks about it, it was. He grew up on a farm."

"I bet that's a life in which he was taught he had to 'be a man' at all costs."

"No kidding. So how do I find out if homosexuality is one of the things he's feeling the need to cover up?"

"You'll have to find some way to break him out of that cycle, even if for a second. Slip him up in some way and see if anything comes out. No pun intended."

"How, exactly does an architecture grad student know all of this?"

"My undergrad major may have been physics, but I minored in psychology."

I stretched out, putting my head in his lap before continuing.

"Okay, so what do we do?"

"I wish I could meet the guy. It would be easier if I knew what we were up against."

"Actually, I have an idea for that. It would also give you a chance to meet Jim. I'm going to convince Michael that we need to have a Halloween party at work, and you're invited."

"Halloween! There's an idea."

"I know that look. What?"

"The Village People."

"The Village People?"

"Yeah! You don't think those characters are random, do you? They represent, like, icons of gay fantasies. Which do you think is Dwight's cup of tea?"

"I don't know, why?"

"Do you think Jim would let you pick out his costume?"

I shot upright immediately. I had never found him as brilliant and sexy before as I did right then. "Oh my god, you are twisted. Get over here and kiss me."

We spent the rest of the night planning, and making out.

-x-o-X-0-X-o-x-

The Village People: Indian, cowboy, biker, military man, construction worker, cop. I had no idea what would flip Dwight's switch.

I knew Jim enough to know what he likes. Jim always sat up a little straighter when a cop was around, he obviously had a thing for the boys in blue. The way Jim had reacted the year before when Dwight had come to work in his volunteer sheriff's uniform made that painfully obvious. How he couldn't keep his eyes of the other man. I think he had even said something to Dwight about it, attempting to sound teasing. At the time I thought it was the uniform alone. Now I'm pretty sure it was the man wearing the uniform too.

But what would get Dwight to notice Jim like that? Indian, biker…none of them felt right. Construction worker was the closest, but still…

There had to be gay fantasies not covered in the village people. Finally, it hit me. Back when Ryan had started the office on fire, when the fire truck pulled up, Dwight had pretty much been drooling…

-x-o-X-0-X-o-x-

"Alright, here is your costume, Jim."

He looked down at the large plain white box I had laid down on his dining room table.

"So, why did you want to pick my costume again?"

"Our costumes tell a story, you, Peter and me. None of us makes sense without the others."

"Okay, well, you are obviously a cat, What's Peter?"

"You'll see when he gets there at five. Hurry up, put your costume on!"

"Okay, okay!"

He took the box and disappeared into his bedroom. After five minutes, his door opened a crack, and his head poked out.

"Uh, Pam. There's a problem here."

"Problem?" I tried to sound innocent.

"Yeah, the pants are okay, but the jacket won't close, it doesn't even have buttons. And there's no shirt for underneath. Should I just put a sweatshirt on under it?"

"NO! That'll ruin it. Let me see, it can't be that bad."

I was expecting to laugh when I saw him, but the effect was decidedly not funny. The pants and boots with the yellow reflective tape sat nicely at his waist, the red suspenders lay against his surprisingly defined chest. He was right about the jacket, it ended just on level with the suspenders, leaving a major portion of his chest and abdomen exposed. He had the fake ax thrown over his shoulder, and the hat was tucked between his other arm and his hip. He actually looked incredibly hot. If we didn't get a response from this, Dwight had to be straight.

"Look at this. I can't go to work like this. For one thing, I'm sure it's against some dress code, but for another, its 55 degrees out there."

"Not in the office, you can still wear a coat to work. And the dress codes don't apply on Halloween."

He put the hat on his head, and I felt the need to amend my previous thoughts. If Dwight didn't respond to this, he must not have a pulse.

"Should I put a t-shirt on, at least?"

"No, no. We have to go, or we'll be late for work."

"Fine, fine." He tucked the axe into the loop on his pants meant to hold it, and grabbed his coat. "I hope you realize, I look like a male stripper."

That was the point, Jim. That was the point.

When we pulled up to the building, I asked Jim to get a cart from the warehouse and bring a bunch of things up to the office for me. I ran ahead, needing to recruit help for my next step of the plan. I found the camera crew setting up as I entered the office. I quickly pulled the camera man aside, and asked him to help keep a look out for any odd behavior from Dwight, especially when Jim was around. Dwight was already at his desk, dressed like a pirate.

I quickly made my way to my desk and waited. I wanted to see his face when Jim came in.

Finally, Jim entered with the cart full of the bags of decorations I had bought for the party. He wheeled them to my desk, then made to pull off his coat. His timing couldn't have been better. As he peeled his coat off, the fireman's jacket came along with it, momentarily leaving nothing on the upper part of his torso except the suspenders. Of course, that was the exact moment Dwight looked up, his jaw dropping open as Jim tried to extricate his jacket from his coat. Finally, he separated them, hanging his coat on the coat rack, before putting the jacket back on and turning back toward his desk.

Dwight managed to snap his jaw shut, and was clenching it closed, if the tension in his jaw was anything to go by.

"Morning, Dwight." Jim said off-handedly as he sat at his desk.

Their proximity seemed to bother Dwight, who scooted his chair as far to the left as it would go before looking down at his desk and forcing a terse, "Morning," through his teeth.

I spent the whole morning watching Dwight, and I came to the conclusion that I had been right. Dwight spent most of his time staring at his own computer screen as if he was trying to burn holes in it with his eyes, but the rest of the time he spend shooting furtive glances at Jim when Jim wasn't looking. The biggest giveaway was when Jim got up to head into Michaels's office, and Dwight blatantly watching him go, eyes sweeping down Jim's backside and back up.

It was even so obvious; the cameraman looked at me with his eyebrow raised at that.

After lunch the Party Planning Committee met to put up the decorations for the party. I volunteered Jim to hang the rubber spiders and bats I had bought from the ceiling around my desk, so they would be visible upon entering the office, of course. He grabbed the step stool and did so. Lifting his arms above his head only pulled the jacket open more. Dwight looked like he was going to blow a gasket. You could tell he was trying hard not to look up at the expanse of bare skin not more than six feet in front of him. It only became more perfect when the rubber jacket became too uncomfortable for Jim to wear as he worked, and he took it off and tossed it over on his desk, where it landed on his hat. The plastic axe still hung from the loop near Jim's waist. At that point, Dwight couldn't even pretend to be looking elsewhere, he just stared up as Jim hung rubber vermin at various spots from the ceiling between their desks and mine, his breath visibly quickened, clutching the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles were white.

Okay, Dwight was gay. Not only was he gay, but he was attracted to Jim. He seriously wanted him. From the look in his eyes, he wanted Jim bent over his desk, right now.

I was so excited, I grabbed my cell phone and ran to the bathroom to tell Peter.

Of course, all hell would have to break loose the minute I turned by back on those two. When I got back, they were both standing, arguing. It was hard to follow, but I think it had something to do with the rubber bat that was laying half in and half out of Dwight's coffee cup. The step stool was set up right near Dwight's chair, between it and Jim's desk.

"You dropped it on purpose."

"If you had just moved aside for a minute, I wouldn't have had to reach over you."

Dwight was obviously flustered, and it took him a while to come up with a valid reason for not having moved. "Yeah, well, I have work to do, I can't just leave my desk for no reason…"

"It would have taken, like, 10 seconds."

As they argued, they moved closer and closer, to the point where they were mere inches away from each other. Nearly the same height, they were too close to hit each other, but not quite close enough to kiss...

"Okay, you two, break it up."

Sometimes I could kill Michael. Just as he spoke, Dwight seemed to register his proximity to Jim. His eyes swept quickly down Jim's chest as he hurriedly backed away. Jim seemed to have been holding his breath, because as Dwight backed away, he let it all go in one big sweep, and took a step back himself.

Things quieted down after that. Good thing there was a second step in my plan. It involved the great uninhibitor duo: alcohol and a locked closet.

You think I'm kidding, don't you?

End Chapter Three

TBC


	4. Neurosis

I should have suspected something. I should have been on my guard. Pam and Peter (who came dressed as a tree) had been sending each other all sorts of signals since his arrival. Plus, there was no reason for her to be THAT happy to be sending Peter, Dwight, and me down to the warehouse closet to pick up the extra snacks she had brought the day before and given to the warehouse guys to store. Peter seemed like a really nice guy. He even got along with Dwight. I never would have suspected something like that from him.

I guess I was wrong.

He sent Dwight and me into the closet, while he went to grab another cart. We were busy grabbing bags of stuff to put on the cart when the door slammed. There was an ominous metal-on-metal scraping noise followed by a small click. I dropped the bag of Little Debbie snack cakes shaped like pumpkins and bats and turned toward the door. It wouldn't budge.

"Alright, Pam, what's this about?" I mumbled to myself, reaching into my pocket to grab my phone. Of course, no signal. I was in the bowels of a giant concrete building. Locked in a closet. Dressed as a fireman. With Dwight.

"Uhhh, Dwight?"

"What."

"I think we're locked in."

"What? No we're not. Move."

He elbowed me out of the way and pulled the door himself. He tried the handle, then began tugging on the door. Nothing.

"There's no cell reception, either." I held my phone up so he could see. He turned and looked at it, then at me, before he turned and began banging frantically on the door, calling for help. There had been no one in the warehouse, and with the volume that the Monster Mash was playing up in the office, no one up there would hear us. Somehow, I thought that was the point.

I tried to explain this to him, but I couldn't make myself heard over his yells. I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to stay locked in this closet with a yelling Dwight until Pam saw fit to release us when I noticed his yelling had changed. It was more desperate, and breathy. He was pounding the door with his fists way too hard. There was sweat condensing on the back of his neck, running in slow droplets down into the collar of his ruffled pirate shirt. I had never seen Dwight like this.

I pulled him around, and saw the wild look in his eye (the one not covered with an eye patch). He was usually so rock steady, his demeanor scared me more than anything. I ran my hands up and down his shoulders, trying to soothe him. It seemed to be working, until I reached up to check his temperature, first at his forehead, then the back of his neck. Then he really lost it. He pushed me backward, hard, my back hitting the stack of paper-filled boxes behind me as I stumbled.

"Dwight, you need to calm down."

"Why would they lock us in here?"

"Dwight, calm dow-"

"We can't get out."

"They know we're here, they'll let us ou-"

"We're going to run out of air."

"Dwight, are you claustropho-"

"You are half-naked, and I am dressed like a pirate, and we are going to die here like this."

"Calm down, Dwight."

"Oh god, oh god, oh god…"

*slap*

He looked up at me, startled. I grabbed his face in both hands to keep his eyes on me.

"Dwight, listen to me. They know we're down here; they locked us here on purpose. They will not leave us here, and even if they did, there will be people here again on Monday. We have food and drinks down here, and there is a space under the door big enough to let plenty of air in. You're burning up, and you're hyperventilating. If you don't calm down, you'll pass out."

Still breathing heavily, but at least no longer screaming, he slid down the metal door until he was sitting on the floor.

"Why would they lock us up like this?"

"I don't know why." I actually had a pretty good idea why, though that was not an idea I was willing to say aloud to Dwight. I don't know how Pam thought this was going to end. I decided the best course of action was to see how long she planned on keeping us down there, while quietly planning Pam's murder.

I looked through the grocery bags she had brought down the day before. In the first, underneath a few layers of Halloween goodies I found a canteen and a note. The note simply read:

_I'm sorry, but this had to be done. You'll understand when this is over, I promise. You may even thank me. –P_

I handed the note and the canteen to Dwight, and turned to the second bag.

Again, under an innocuous layer of Halloween treats I found a small plain brown bag with an even smaller box in it. Intrigued, and more than a little apprehensive, I reached into the bag…

And pulled out a box of condoms…

Which I immediately shoved down into the front pocket of my fireman's pants. It was then that I heard Dwight sputtering behind me. Afraid that he had seen me with the condoms, I quickly turned around, trying to think of some innocent reason why Pam would have locked us in a closet with a box of condoms.

"This isn't water, it's rum." He was still sitting on the floor against the door, and had spit what seemed like a mouthful of the liquid from the canteen on to the floor in front of him, and was holding the canteen out toward me.

I grabbed it, lifting it to my nose. Sure enough, it was Rum. Looking down at him, dressed like a pirate and looking dejected, I took as many big gulps of the Rum as I could before I had to take a breath, and cough around the burning liquid. I didn't even think about the possible consequences, about the fact that I WAS half naked, locked in a closet with the man I had only just recently discovered I was hopelessly attracted to. That that man was dressed as a pirate, and that I had really, really liked watching Johnny Depp in The Pirates of the Caribbean. That I was standing there with a pocket full of condoms and, now, a stomach full of rum.

I turned back to the bags and began digging through them again, mostly in an attempt to not look at Dwight. I found a pack of playing cards, lots of Halloween snacks, and a small cooler. In the cooler were two foot-long sandwiches from Subway, and two bottles of what appeared to be water. I opened one and took a sip. Thankfully, it was water. By the looks of it, she was planning to have us here at least a few hours, probably overnight.

I brought the bags over to Dwight, and turned to look through the shelves around us. Most were full of boxes of paper, there was one shelf that held boxes of light bulbs. There was also a box marked "JH&DS" in which I found a blanket, a pillow, and a twin size memory foam mattress pad. I grabbed this, and brought it over to Dwight, quickly turning back toward the shelves so I wouldn't have to see the look on his face when he saw them. Other than that, there was also a small box of pens, and a lot of dust bunnies. For the need of something to do to keep myself busy and not look at Dwight, I began stacking boxes of paper into the shape of an armchair, becoming aware, as my work made me sweat, that I had left the jacket part of my costume in the office, and that the closet in the warehouse was slightly chillier than was comfortable without a shirt.

Dwight must have noticed this too. "Would you please put a shirt on?"

I turned to find his head turned away from me, for some reason staring into the empty corner by the door.

"Well, I don't have one, Dwight, but if you throw me the blanket, I'll gladly wrap it around myself."

He grabbed the blanket and swept his eyes up my body, tossing the blanket and saying, "That is a ridiculous costume."

I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and sat on the floor opposite him, my back pressed into the bookcase behind me. "Yes, well...Matey, pass me the rum, and mind you use your good hand, and not the hook. We don't want to be spillin' the precious nectar o' gods, now do we?" I said in my best Captain Barbosa impression. He quickly looked back down at his own costume, before tossing the canteen toward me. For some reason, I took another big gulp, before realizing what I was doing and throwing the canteen into the farthest corner.

He looked at me then, with what I could swear was a concerned look. "You don't want to drink alcohol, it's a diuretic; you'll just end up dehydrated and needing to pee."

"Oh, my god! Wait a minute. Shouldn't there be a door to the bathroom on that wall?" I had only used the bathrooms in the warehouse once or twice, but I could swear that there would be a door behind the shelf of paper to my right. We both hopped up and started hauling the paper from the shelf in question to the opposite side of the closet, finally lightening the shelving unit enough to slide it away from the wall. Sure enough, there was a door, and miraculously, the door opened when I pulled down on the handle. Before I had even slid the door fully open, Dwight had launched himself into the room and to the door that led from it to the main room of the warehouse.

That door, however, didn't budge. It, too, had been locked from the outside.

The good news was that we now had working toilets and running water. The bad news was that this fact might mean that Pam had every intention of keeping us here until Monday.

00oo00

"Do you have any…sevens?"

"Go fish."

After we had found the bathroom we had gone back to our places in the closet. We played a game of War, which disintegrated into a shouting match. That's when we switched to Go Fish. He sat on the floor with his back to the door, and I sat leaning back against the shelf on the back wall of the closet. The closet was not a very big one, and with the number of shelves that were crammed inside, and all the boxes of paper, there was even less floor space. Even though we sat on opposite sides of the room, if we both stretched our feet out toward each other, our legs would touch.

We didn't stretch our legs out.

"Do you have any fours?"

I pulled the four out of my hand and tossed it toward him while he laid his last card down. Despite the cold weather outside, and the fact that our closet had no heat, it was so small that our bodies heated it up pretty quickly. Even with the door to the bathroom kept open, the closet was still warm. Dwight was sweating to the point that his glasses kept slipping down his nose, and he had to keep pushing them up. I tried not to think about the sheen across his skin that I could see on the small part of his chest that showed through between the loosely laced-up v-neck of his pirate's shirt. Of course, with the alcohol in my system, I was not quite fighting the urge to look at it as well as I normally could have. That was mostly okay though, because Dwight was doing everything in his power not to look at me, so he didn't notice my eyes lingering.

He flipped my phone open for what must have been the hundredth time. "It's eleven o'clock. Everyone must have gone home by now."

"I wonder if any of them noticed-" I stifled a yawn, "our cars still in the lot."

He actually looked at me for what felt like the first time in hours. "We should probably sleep in turns, so one of us can keep watch."

"Uhh, Diwght, it's not like we're in danger of being attacked by wild animals or soldiers from the enemy camp. We're locked in a closet. I think it would be safe for us both to sleep at the same time."

He looked over at the box that held the bedding Pam had left us. "I don't sleep in front of people anyway, so I'll keep watch."

After setting up the bed in the corner I sat on the edge of it, looking again at the small piece of chest peeking through his laces. "Are you sure you don't just want to go to bed with me? There's really plenty of room." When he looked up at me I pat my hand on the bed beside me. If I had been thinking clearly, if I hadn't drunk so much rum, I would not have even offered. He only stared at me for a few seconds, before turning to face the other way.

"No, I'll keep watch."

I tossed him the blanket, in case he changed his mind, and lay down on the pad. Something dug into the front of my thigh, and I pulled it out of my pocket and tossed it across the room. With the level of alcohol in my bloodstream, it didn't occur to me until I was just on the edge of sleep that I had just tossed a box of condoms toward Dwight. If he gave any reaction, I never heard it before I fell asleep.

-o-0-o-

A/N: There are two more chapters left after this one. I've already begun writing both chapters. Some of you may have noticed that the chapter titles are all terms from Freudian psychology. Psychoanalytical theory was the inspiration for this story, and each chapter title relates to what is going on in the chapter, as you've seen. Based on this premise, I'll give you a small hint at what's to come. The last two chapters are called Cathexis and Catharsis. I'm going to try to have them finished and posted before the new semester starts.


	5. Cathexis

I opened my eyes, and it was dark. Dwight must have turned the main light off at some point after I fell asleep. The only source of illumination was the door to the bathroom, which was open a crack. A thin beam of light cut across the small closet, adding a faint orange glow to the surrounding darkness. For a moment, I wasn't aware of what had woken me so suddenly, until I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I lifted my head off of my crossed forearms and turned to my side. Above me, Dwight's intense eyes bore into me. He was kneeling beside the makeshift bed, staring earnestly down at me.

"What's up, Dwight?" I asked, voice still heavy from sleep.

He said nothing, only pushed back on my shoulder until I found myself on my back. I was groggy, and offered little resistance. His hair, usually parted down the center and combed to either side of his forehead, was saturate with sweat, sticking to his forehead in snake-like tendrils above his eyebrows as if he had just come out of the shower. A bead of sweat collected at his hair line, dripping slowly down his cheek just in front of his ear to his neck. I found myself watching it slide down his skin, licking my lips at its progress, before looking back up into those intensely sexy eyes.

He grabbed his glasses and tossed them across the room, before descending down on me, lips crashing into mine. His kiss was demanding and hungry, his hands were all over my body, and I found myself instantly turned on. I kissed him back, nipping and pulling him closer until he was lying on top of me. Suddenly, he started to pull back, but now that I had him, I was not about to let him get away. I pushed myself upright, following his lips with mine, shifting my weight so that I was on his lap. He pulled back again, his devious smile on his face.

"You know," he said, holding up a little blue foil package, "we have condoms, we might as well use them."

"Oh, God! I couldn't agree more."

I grabbed the package out of his hand, tearing into it with my teeth as he started fumbling with our clothing, unsnapping my suspenders so that the ends flew violently back over my shoulder as he pushed his own pants down. It took some wiggling to remove our clothing, since I refused to budge fully from his lap, but finally our lips met again, as I reached down to touch him for the first time. He was as hard as I was. I pumped a few times, enjoying the feel of his thickness in my hand, and the way his breath hitched as I ran that hand up and down his sensitive skin. We continued the kiss as I unrolled the condom down his length. I was enjoying the puffs across my skin as he tried to control his breathing, but I needed this right now. I pushed him back, lifting myself on to my knees above him.

"Now!" I demanded.

He spit in his hand like Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, and I almost lost it. I needed him. In me. Right now.

He reached down to prepare me, kissing my eye-level chest as he did so. I was suddenly very impatient. I grabbed his arms and pushed them back, not relenting until I had him pinned backward against the makeshift bed, hands above his head. I held both of his hands down with one of mine, while reaching down with the other, holding his hard shaft still while I speared myself down on it.

"Oh God, yes!" we said at he same time as I started slowly grinding down. Our eyes remained locked. His hands remained pinned down, but he was far from passive, thrusting up into me as hard as I thrust down into him. Finally, I let his hands go and he reached for me, pumping in time to the movement of our bodies. Warmth and dizziness enveloped me as we moved together on that mattress; the only sounds were our pants and moans.

"Jim!" he breathed, closing his eyes tightly.

"Dwight!" I answered.

"Jim!" he said again, more insistently.

"Dwight!" I responded, nearly there too.

"Jim!" He shuddered under me, but he sounded annoyed.

"Oh God, Dwight!" I called as my own orgasm him me.

I bent down to kiss him again, but he held me back.

"Jim, you're having a bad dream," he said, shaking my shoulder.

I opened my eyes with a gasp. The lights were still on. My face was sticking to my arm, a torrential downpour of sweat coated my whole body, and I was breathing in shallow pants. His hand was on the back of my shoulder, shaking me awake.

"Um, uhh okay, thanks. I'm up,"

He sat back down on the floor, his back to me, staring at the door, as if his gaze would hasten someone to rescue us. I found myself hoping that I hadn't been talking or moving around in my sleep, because if he knew what I had been dreaming...

I decided I would try to do something productive with my time. I spent most of the morning trying to get a signal on my phone. I pressed it to the metal shelves, I climbed up the shelves at various points in both rooms, I scoured the walls looking for a vent, wire, or any break in the giant cement box we were trapped in. I even pushed my phone out the bottom of the door, hoping that it could get a signal just outside the door. I put it on speaker phone and tried to speed dial Pam (who was SOOOO going to lose her spot on my #2 speed dial over this stunt). I couldn't get a signal, no matter where I tried. I also tried banging on the pipes periodically; hoping that one of the businesses in the building was open on Saturday, and somebody could hear us. All to no avail.

Throughout my efforts, each time I walked by the canteen of rum, I picked it up and took a swig again. I'm not usually a drinker; in fact, I can't hold my liquor at all. I don't know why I couldn't lay off the stuff now. The Canteen was so big, and despite the amount of rum I had drunk the night before, it still felt completely full.

Of course, by noon I was well and truly smashed. I was slightly slurring my words, I wasn't exactly walking with the steadiest movements, and when I sat down next to Dwight, I admittedly sat just a tad too close, enjoying the feeling of his warm thigh pressed against mine. I handed him one of the sandwiches, and started in on my own. I also tend to talk and laugh (okay, giggle, I giggle) more than usual when I'm drunk. Dwight, on the other hand, was more quiet than usual. I joked and tried to engage him in conversation, but he wasn't much help in my attempts, though I did see him suppress a chuckle a few times. At least today he was looking at me.

After we finished our sandwiches, Dwight surprised me by taking the canteen of rum out of my hands. "I think you've had enough of this."

"Awwwww!" I tried to sound dissapointed, but was actually greatful that he had taken the canteen away, as I couldn't seem to control myself with it. Still, I turned to him and pouted my lower lip out, before the expression slipped into a grin. The grin slid off my face, though, to find his eyes locked into mine. He really did have amazing green eyes. Normally I would have been quick to look away. Staring into another man's eyes wasn't exactly a smart move for a guy, especially when you don't want him knowing how amazing you think he is. Also to complicate matters, the last time I had looked into those eyes had been a few hours before in my dream. Recalling how I had straddled his lap, pinning his hands down into the mattress while looking into those eyes that my subconscious had recreated perfectly in my dream, I told myself to look away, but my gaze remained rebelliously fixed on him.

As the eye contact lingered, I found it harder to keep my breathing steady. It felt like my chest was expanding, but imploding in on itself at the same time. If I would just lean in across the twelve inches between us, my lips could be on his. I had to do something, either look away or kiss him. I knew which I should do, even as my whole body screamed at me to do the other. But still, I did nothing, caught in his gaze like a deer in headlights.

Dwight looked away then, tipping the canteen he had taken from me back and taking a series of large swigs of the rum within. I let out a breath that I hadn't even been aware of holding, looking down at my hands, serupticiously wiping them on the thighs of my pants, trying to rid them of the layer of sweat that coated my palms.

This really was cruel and unusual of Pam. Of course, she couldn't have known how hot it would get in this room, couldn't have known how much more enticing than usual Dwight would look with damp hair, and a pirate's shirt sticking to his clammy torso. She probably couldn't have anticipated how the stubble on Dwight's face, from not having shaved in over a day, would look so damn appealing. She probably didn't even consider how it would affect me, being locked in a hot closet with a sweaty, disheveled, ruggedly unshaven and devastatingly HETEROSEXUAL Dwight Schrute. Locked in a small closet with someone I desperately wanted but could never have, really, what had she expected, and what had I done to deserve this torture? I sat there, stewing in my frustration.

As if my growing anger had somehow summoned its object of focus, there came from the door a soft clicking sound, which would have been overlooked if not for the utter silence within the closet itself. The door groaned in protest as it was slid open, revealing a smiling Pam on the other side. Dwight and I immediately surged to our feet. Dwight charged forward, going into a tirade about kidnapping and false imprisonment.

I could only stand there, staring at her. As her eyes finally found mine the grin slipped off her face, crashing into a thousand shards at her feet.

* * *

It was so obvious that these two men wanted each other. I was certain they would finally figure it out, if only given a little push. At first I had planned on keeping them locked in the warehouse closet until Monday, but I wasn't sure whether they would find the bathroom. Plus, I was dying to see them finally together and happy, so I eagerly went to let them out on Saturday, ready to accept the grateful appreciation of two adorable men who were obviously mad for each other.

I was quite shocked when I opened the door, and was instead greeted by a blast of anger and pain.

The anger was easy enough to ignore. Anyone who knew Dwight should have expected some level of hostility at my admittedly felonious behavior. The pain is what caused me to stop in my tracks. Jim has one of the most expressive faces I have ever seen, it was part of the reason I had initially developed an innocent crush on him back when I first met him. Joy, pain, confusion, anger-whatever he was feeling was always written across his face in such pure earnestness, seeing it there pretty much meant feeling the emotion yourself.

The pain evident on Jim's face could have torn my heart out on its own, but knowing that I had caused it, I was devastated. How could this have gone so wrong? Finally, Jim started walking toward me. He stopped momentarily in front of me, before slipping past me in the open doorway, and making his way out of the warehouse.

I turned back toward Dwight asking, "What happened?"

"Whu- what- what happ-!" He sputtered, appoplectic in his anger. After opening and closing his mouth a number of times, clearly at a loss as to what to say, he angrily brandished the canteen in my face that had been hanging off his neck by its strap. "I'm taking this!" he said, as if losing the canteen I had bought at the army surplus store (destined to only be used this one time, anyway) would be a fitting punishment for my holding Jim and him captive.

I put a contrite look on my face and nodded, and Dwight huffed, making his own way out of the warehouse, clutching his new canteen like a trophy. Before he made it out the door, I called to his retreating back, "I'm sorry, Dwight."

The stall in his steps as I spoke was the only indication that he had heard me, before he continued out the door.

I turned back toward the now empty closet. They had obviously found the bathroom, the door to which was now open. I quickly picked up all the trash, putting it in one of the bags and leaving it in the garbage of the bathroom. I put the remaining uneaten food, and the other reusable supplies in an empty paper box, and had started to head out the door with it, when I saw the box of condoms laying on the floor near the base of the opposite wall, unopened. I picked it up, putting it in the box as well, and made my way out.

When I got to the parking lot, I found Jim leaning against the passenger side of my car, shivering. I was about to speak, but he interrupted me. "My coat and keys are up in the office, which is locked. I've also had a bit too much to drink. I need a ride home."

He was silent the whole way to his apartment. I tried to appologize a number of times, tried to find out where my plan had gone wrong, but he refused to speak.

When we pulled in front of his building, he got out and slammed the door, not even looking back at me as he made his way inside.

End Chapter Five

A/N: I am sooooo sorry for the delay, but this chapter (and life itself) gave me an inordinate amount of trouble. All I can do is get down on my knees and beg for forgiveness. Please, please, please forgive me. Pretty please with whipped cream and a cherry on top, forgive me.

To all who have reviewed /favorite/alerted this story so far: Thank you. Your kind words and feedback are what finally made me push through. The good news is that there is only ONE MORE CHAPTER left. And even more good news: the last chapter is already partly written, and has been since before I ever posted any of this. I'm getting on it right now, and suspect it will be posted VERY soon. Again, thank you, and lots of love to each and every one of you wonderful ladies. Jim isn't the only one who makes a good gay best friend, you know. :)

I know this chapter ended on an unhappy note, but the resolution is coming, and will make all of this worthwhile. Fear not, our boys will have their happy ending. Now I'm off to work on the final chapter: Catharsis.


	6. Catharsis

I tried to call Jim a number of times over the next day and a half, but he refused to pick up the phone. I left him twelve messages, but I didn't know if he was even listening to any of them. Knowing that his car was still in the Dunder Mifflin parking lot, I decided to leave home an hour and a half early on Monday, knowing Jim would need a ride in. I wanted to make sure I got to him before he had a chance to call a cab.

I arrived at his building and made my way up to the second floor, knocking on his apartment door. After a few minutes he opened the door only enough to see that it was me on the other side, immediately slamming it back in my face.

I had to put a stop to this. Knocking once more, I started yelling through the door, "Jim! Jim, I know you can hear me! I am SO sorry, Jim. I never meant to do anything that would cause problems for you. It kills me that I have, and I can't stand the thought of losing you." I paused, hoping he would answer. "Please, Jim. Please talk to me. I-" My voice cracked, partly from having to raise it to make sure he could hear me through the door, and partly from trying to keep myself from crying. I took a breath, trying to calm myself.

Before I could get another word out, Jim opened the door and immediately pulled me into a hug. Relief flooded through me, and I let out a single dry sob against his chest.

"What were you thinking, Pam?" He asked, one hand across my upper back, the other still hanging on to the open door's knob.

"I just wanted to help you, Jim. You're my best friend. I love you so much, and I want you to be happy. Dwight makes you happy. I mean, you guys are oddly perfect for each other."

"Perfect for…" He said under his breath, chuckling mirthlessly to himself. "You're right, he does make me happy, and being with him would be perfect. But you forgot one very important point." He pulled back slightly, shifting his hand to my shoulder. I pulled back too, looking up into his open face. "No matter how much I may want him, he's straight."

I pulled fully away from his contact, making my way past him and into his apartment. "No he's not."

"Yes, he is." He looked down at me as if he pitied me while he shut the door and leaned back against it.

"No, Jim, he's not. He wants you."

"What makes you say that?" He asked, as if humoring a delusional person.

"The way he looks at you, the way he acts around you…"

He began shaking his head at me. "Pam, no-"

"Jim, open your eyes and look at him sometime," I interrupted him.

"Oh, I have looked at him. Plenty, believe me."

"No, Jim-"

"Can we not talk about this, please?"

This conversation wasn't over, but I didn't want to make him mad, seeing as how he had just seemingly forgiven me. Instead I took in his appearance. He was wearing a white t-shirt and green flannel pajama pants, and his hair was obviously unbrushed from having slept on it. It was sticking up in the back in a way I thought Dwight would find cute. I certainly did. "What are you wearing? Aren't you coming to work today?"

"I don't really feel up facing the world right now." He walked past me and collapsed down on the couch, pulling the throw over his shoulders. I sat next to him.

"What happened in that closet?"

"Nothing happened. Were you actually expecting something to happen?"

The question was obviously a rhetorical one, so I didn't bother answering it. "Then why are you so upset?"

"How would you have felt? He looked so good, and he smelled so good, and he was so damn close." He looked at me, trying to convey how hard that had been for him. "You know, I think he had a panic attack when Peter first locked us in the closet. I was so scared for him. Seriously, there were a few minutes there where I would have been ready to rip your guys' head off for doing that to him."

"Wow, that's...really sweet, actually."

He looked at me, clearly not sharing the sentiment.

"So nothing happened?"

"Stop acting so shocked, Pam. No, nothing happened. He had a panic attack, we played some cards, I went to sleep," as he said that, I noticed a small blush color his cheeks, but decided to let that go for now. "Nothing happened."

"Then why this sudden urge to hide from him today?"

"Okay, so I MAY have had a dream about him…"

"What kind of dream?" He shot a glare at me. "Oh, I see. Well, we've worked with him for years, I'm sure you've had dreams about him before."

"Yeah, but never when he was in the room at the time."

"Oh. Oh! You don't think he knew, do you?"

"He did wake me up from it. He said it was a bad dream, so there must have been SOME indication that the dream involved a bit more than calmly meditating in a field of wildflowers."

I couldn't help but laugh at Jim's wording. "Well, maybe your breathing was just labored." When Jim didn't respond, I pat him on the back. "Come on, get dressed. You're coming into work today. I'll stop and get us some breakfast on the way, my treat."

* * *

Pam had talked me into going in to work. She was right, even if I took that day off, I would have to face him the next day. The only way to avoid him completely would be to quit, and though being around him would be somewhat painful for a while since I had finally figured out how I really felt about him, it was true that he did make me happy, and I would rather have him in my life as a coworker, possibly a friend, than not in my life at all.

Since we had left so early that morning, even after stopping at a drive through to pick up breakfast, Pam and I were the first to arrive. On my desk, I found the fireman's hat, jacket, and plastic ax still laying where I had left them on Friday. I grabbed them, along with my coat that was still hung on the coat rack near Pam's desk, and brought them down to my car so I wouldn't forget them on my way home at the end of the day. Of course, Michael was heading in the building as I was bringing them to my car, and he stopped me on my way.

"We all couldn't help but notice that you and Dwight disappeared halfway through the Halloween party. Meredith suggested that you guys had snuck off to hook up in a closet somewhere." Michael laughed at how ridiculous a suggestion that had been, but I froze. That was too shockingly close to what had actually happened, yet, sadly, so wide off from the mark that it was comical.

"Why would she say that?" I asked.

"I don't know, she and Phyllis were talking, something about your costume." He indicated down at the pieces of it in my arms. "Be careful, Jim."

Oh, God. Michael didn't know, did he? "About what?" I asked, trying not to sound guilty.

"You wear something like that again, and I think I know who'll be getting 'Sexiest in the Office' at the next Dundies."

I sighed in relief. Michael didn't know anything about my feelings for Dwight. I had taken one step back on my way to my car, when I stalled again. Thinking about what he had just said, I turned back to Michael. "Please, don't do that." It was scary, really, all the ways that Michael could be dangerous.

There was absolutely no awkwardness between Dwight and me when he got there, in fact, only Pam was on the receiving end of his foul mood that morning, and though I had forgiven her, it was nothing less than she deserved, so I enjoyed that fact a little.

She wasn't making it any better for herself in the way she kept catching my attention, and indicating toward Dwight. I know what she had said earlier about my need to pay more attention to Dwight, but that was the opposite of what I actually needed to do at the moment, so I tried to ignore her. That didn't stop her from trying all day. By the end of the day, it was obvious that Dwight had begun to notice Pam's behavior, and was becoming increasingly paranoid about it.

I had said goodbye to Pam as she left, and turned to go back into the annex, needing to go over some forms with Kelly in customer service. Of course, what should have been a two minute business conversation with Kelly had turned into a ten minute lecture about something Perez Hilton had said about what J-Lo had worn to some award show. I tried to get away by slowly backing out toward the main room, but she followed me. Everyone else had gone home. Kelly and I walked toward the coat rack, putting our coats on. When she finally stopped to take a breath, I took the blessed opening and ran with it. "I agree with you completely, but I just remembered I have a call to make. I'll see you tomorrow."

I sat down in my chair, but she still seemed to be hovering by the door, so I picked up the receiver and called the local movie theater, thankful that I still had the number memorized from back when I had worked there in high school. They now had an automated answering service that listed the movies and times.

*Welcome to Marquee Cinemas –Steamtown 8. Press one for—*

I quickly pressed one. "Hello, Mr. Schnidermann. Thank you for letting me get back to you so late, now about your order..." Finally, Kelly had left the office. I hung up the phone and sat back in my chair, enjoying the rare moment alone in the quiet office, and looking over at Dwight's empty chair. I was going to give Kelly at least another two minutes to get to her car before I even THOUGHT about leaving the office. When I thought that the coast was clear I got up, hit the lights, and left.

I had turned to shut the office door when a voice behind me startled me.

"So you and Pam were acting mighty chummy today." I turned quickly and jumped, finding Dwight looming further down the hall which lead to the elevators.

"Oh, God. You scared me, Dwight." I collapsed back into the door I had just closed, clutching at my chest and trying to catch my breath.

"Seems a bit weird to me, seeing as how she was an accessory to your kidnapping not three days ago." He had begun walking toward me in a predatory way, which I tried to find intimidating rather than sexy.

"Uh, yeah. Well, she apologized, so..."

"Why did she do it?" He had stopped a few feet away from me, between me an the path to the elevators.

"Who knows what goes on in that head of hers?"

I began making my way down the hall, but as I passed near him he stopped me, a hand firmly pressing into my chest, not only forcing me to stop but actually pushing me backward a few inches. I had to take a couple of steps backward to compensate. "I know you know why she did it, Jim," he growled my name, which I would have to add to the list of things I absolutely should find intimidating rather than sexy.

I sighed, looking down at my shoes. "She was playing a prank on us, Dwight."

"Since when does she play pranks on you?"

"She always plays pranks on me," I tried to explain. It was true; she was always pranking me, though this was not one of those times. "That's what you do to friends." I looked up at the word, trying to gauge his reaction to the implied suggestion that he and I were friends.

He did seem a bit surprised, and looked down himself to think that one over. I used that as my cue to leave. But I hadn't even made it two steps when he pushed me back again, harder this time. "Damn it, Jim. I know there's more to it than that. What is it?"

"Go home, Dwight." I tried to walk past him again, and again he pushed me back, hard enough this time that my back hit the door behind me.

"Why won't you tell me? Why did she lock us up?"

I took a step forward, stopping right in front of him. I was starting to get mad.

"You want to know why, Dwight? She locked you in there with me because I've fallen for you. She stupidly thought that if she locked us in a closet with chocolate and alcohol and condoms, I would confess everything, and the power of my attraction would turn you to putty in my hands."

For one second, the longest second in my life, he didn't respond. I couldn't move, I couldn't even breathe. Finally, he stepped as close to me as he could get, his face mere inches from mine, and pushed me back into the door again, saying, "Very funny, Jim. Why did she really-"

But he never got to finish his sentence. I didn't let him. I don't know why I did it.

Actually, I know exactly why. I had been fantasizing about it since Pam had introduced the thought in my head (though if I was honest with myself, I had entertained the notion a few times in the last few years). What I mean is I don't know what pushed me over the edge to finally act on what had been consuming my waking thoughts, and my nightly dreams, for weeks now. Perhaps it was his physical closeness; perhaps it was the intensity of his eyes. Whatever it was, I found myself reaching out, grabbing him by the tie, closing the already short distance between us. Pulling his body into mine, I sought out his mouth, lips pressing against gaping lips. Wet and warm, I kissed those unresponsive lips. Pressing our firm bodies against each other, I tried to communicate everything I felt through every movement of my body against his. I slowly ran my tongue just inside his lips, which were parted in shock.

He didn't move; arms hovering in midair where they had been just before I had grabbed him. He didn't kiss me back, but he didn't push me away, either. Heartened, I sucked his lower lip between mine, giving it a small nibble before pulling back to look him in the eye. He did not respond, only stood there as if in suspended animation, eyes as unresponsive as his lips. It was as I looked down at those lips, reddened from my assault that what I had just done finally caught up with me.

Horrified, I pushed him away from myself enough that I could get out from between him and the door.

"I'm so sorry," I said in shame, before turning tail and running down the hall as fast as I could go.

* * *

He kissed me. I couldn't believe it. It was so outside the realm of what I would have ever expected, it had short circuited my brain. It was a few seconds before something finally popped a fuse, and I was able to do something other than stand upright and breathe. I reached up a hand, bewilderedly touching my lips, before finally springing into action.

"Wait," when I was finally capable of voluntary action, I followed him down the hall, and to the corridor that held the elevators, where he was waiting, pressing the down button repeatedly and saying "Come on, come on, come on."

"Jim!"

"Oh, God," he sounded panicked, spinning in his spot and instead pushing through the door into the stairwell. In the time that it took me to cross the corridor and followed him through the door, he was already out of sight.

I could hear him making his way downward through the echoes bouncing around me. "Wait, Jim." His footfalls didn't slow, so I increased my speed, finally catching up to him on the bottom floor.

"Wait," Finally catching up to him, I grabbed his elbow, forcing him to turn and face me.

"Go away, Dwight." He barely looked at me before turning back around to flee again.

Now that I caught up with him, I wasn't about to let go. My grip tightened on his elbow. "Damn it, Jim!"

He stopped, dropping his head in defeat, and slowly started to turn back toward me. It wasn't fast enough for me. I spun him to face me, again pushing him against the wall at the base of the stairs, and holding him there with my own body. Only giving myself time to register the shock on his face, I reach up a hand behind his neck, pulling his face down to mine and kissing him like I should have done up in the hall outside the office when he had kissed me, like I should have done down in the closet when I had had to force myself to look away from his body in that damn firemen's costume, like I should have done the first time he played a prank on me, and his grin afterward made it feel like the floor had just given way underneath me, like I should have done years ago when I first met him and decided only days later that sharing a desk clump with him was one of the best parts about my job.

The End

A/N: There ya' go, done. And the last chapter was the longest one! Though I do have an idea for an epilogue, which I plan on posting as soon as I get it all written. This was how this story was always going to end, 'cos it was meant to be about how the boys got together, but I sooo much want to write one last bit in which they're an actual couple, so I'm starting the outline now, and promise to post it soon.

Can I just say? No more writing in the first person perspective for me. This has been such a bother! Almost as bad as writing in the present tense. I'll probably make the epilogue third person limited or omniscient, just to make it a bit easier on myself.

So, how about the episode "Pam's Replacement" a few months back? Just based on certain scenes alone (y'all know the ones I'm talking about) it has been added to my favourite episodes ever list. Any amount of Dwight/Jim interaction is always nice, but that was just…guh! (And also, lol)

Well, thank you to all who have reviewed. This story is dedicated to each and every one of you. Now I'm off to continue the epilogue.

Oh, I'll dance at your wedding if you review. And if I'm too late for your happy day, I invite you to dance at mine instead (I'm sure they'll make it legal some time).


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